Eyewitness Alistair Millen said: "My view is right at the front of the pier.

"At first there was smoke coming out of the top of it. The fire alarms had gone off and they were evacuating people.

"When I got here there were lots of fire engines and lots of police.

"The fire is in the main building at the moment."

The fire service says around 60 firefighters are tackling the blaze at the two-storey building, which is around 50 metres from the shoreline.

Sussex Police said they had officers at the scene to help with local road closures and to prevent the public getting too close to the fire, and the Coastguard is also helping with the efforts to contain the blaze.

The fire service added: "We were alerted at 15.13 on 30 July 2014 to reports of a small fire - believed to be in wall panelling - in a part of the pier housing arcade games.

"Due to the nature of the building involved, a number of crews have been sent to the scene, including those from Eastbourne, Uckfield, Pevensey and Hailsham."

On its website Eastbourne Pier is billed as a "wonderful place", "the perfect day out" and "one of the most popular attractions in the UK".

It says it caters for all age groups and features an amusement arcade called Funtasia, the Waterfront Cafe Bar, Victorian tea rooms, and is home to the Atlantis nightclub.

Eastbourne Pier is not the first pier to suffer from a blaze.

In 2003, the 148-year-old West Pier in Brighton was reduced to a mangled mass of metal by two major blazes within two months.

Southend-on-Sea Pier in Essex, the longest pleasure pier in the world at 7,080 feet (2,156 metres), was badly damaged by fire in 2005. A previous fire damaged it in 1976.

Piers then and now

Grand Pier in Weston-super-Mare was badly damaged by a blaze in 2008, and in 2010 the grade-II listed Hastings Pier was almost destroyed by fire.

Tim Wardley, chairman of the National Piers Society, said the structures had suffered from fires during their 200-year history.

"When you have something that is made of wood, the risk of fire is always going to be sadly that much greater.

"Piers are at risk of being chopped in half by an errant boat, or suffering fire damage - they are constantly under onslaught from mother nature. That's a testament to the 61 which survive proudly after withstanding that onslaught over the last two centuries."